


Blame it on my own sick pride

by Gweiddi_at_Ecate



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Boys fighting, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Teen and up just for swearing, boys in the closet, boys punching boys, my sons are both assholes but blondie wins the crown, post 1x04, you know which boy actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 18:44:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8544877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gweiddi_at_Ecate/pseuds/Gweiddi_at_Ecate
Summary: "People had always been looking, and Lukas hated it with a passion. He just wanted to be left alone. He felt better when he was on his bike, helmet on, and no one could really get an idea of what he was thinking. He dreamed of being ignored. Invisible, boring."





	

**Author's Note:**

> This came out from a friend saying Lukas and Philip were totally going to fight again. But I wished for my sweet son to be the one punching my idiot son first, so this is it.  
> It took me a great deal of time writing this because:  
> 1\. Lukas is an ass and doesn't like to do what I tell him to,  
> 2\. I was supposed to write something completely different this week,  
> 3\. Don't postgraduate and fanwrite. Don't. Believe me.
> 
> The title comes from Sail - AWOLNATION. I bet you already know the song, but anyway, listen to it. It's very good.
> 
> (Also, I'm not a native English-speaker, so some mistakes could be caused less by my impatience and more by my ignorance)

He felt Philip’s eyes looking at him. When Rose was sitting on his lap, Lukas felt the exact moment when Philip arrived.

He had always been sensitive to other people gazing. Everyone had been looking at him since he was little, because he was Bo’s son, because he was the poor orphaned kid, because he was the blonde boy with the BMX, and that teenager winning motocross contests.

People had always been looking, and Lukas hated it with a passion. He just wanted to be left alone. He felt better when he was on his bike, helmet on, and no one could really get an idea of what he was thinking. He dreamed of being ignored. Invisible, boring.

At first he had thought Philip was fucking annoying, just like everyone. Actually, when the new kid looked at him, it bothered Lukas even more than usual. He felt Philip’s eyes piercing through him like arrows, and every time Lukas would get nervous in an instant.

He hadn’t understood why until that night in his father’s cabin, and then he had finally realized Philip didn’t annoy him: he turned him on, excited him. Which was way worse.

He had learned to recognize how Philip’s gaze felt like, and, honestly, he had learned it quite easily. Nothing caused the same shiver down his neck like Philip did.

So he knew. Lukas knew, and he purposefully bent his head to look through the woods. Philip was too far for their eyes to meet, but Lukas felt him watching, and that was enough for his body to react.

He was hurting Philip, forcing him to watch as he tried to shag Rose. And damn, he was shamelessly cheating on her even while she was straddling him, because the only thing that got him hard was feeling the eyes of another boy fixed on him. But he _was_ hard, and damn, wasn’t he sick down to his toes for that.

Rose giggled, and Lukas had to keep focusing on Philip to keep the act going. But then Philip left, running away from that grotesque crime scene, and Lukas closed his eyes.

One day he was going to snap, he knew that. He would never be able to keep it up much longer. He was only borrowing time, and he knew.

He put his hands on Rose’s hips and whispered he was sorry.

She got mad – she looked _hurt_ – so he left before one of them could see the other crying.

 

 

 

Philip was touchy, and cold, and distant. Lukas wished he could say he didn’t know why – he had pulled all that stunt with Rose just to be able to talk to him in public without people whispering, after all – but as much as he acted stupid, he wasn’t that dim-witted. Riding the bike together was fun, but it wasn’t going to erase the fact that Philip had to watch Lukas half naked with Rose on top of him, or that Lukas was willing to be an asshole both to Philip _and_ Rose rather than pulling his fucking head out of the sand.

Sometimes he wished he could be more like Philip, so sure of who and what he was. Lukas still hadn’t quite figured that out. He was so used to people pointing at him like Bo’s kid who knew how to ride, that he had never found the space to be anything more. Different he knew he was, his father was always telling him so with that confused and tired voice of his, but what about that? How was he different? Lukas didn’t understand how the hell his difference would be so evident, but apparently people noticed that even when he couldn’t, as they looked at him like he were some kind of entertainment.

At least when he had his helmet on, he could pretend they were watching someone else. They were watching Bo’s boy, not him. He was Lukas, and he was the lost and ignored guy behind the helmet.

Philip was the one who acted differently. Philip looked at him and saw Lukas. Not Bo’s boy, not any boy, he saw _him_ , and that terrorized Lukas, because he himself couldn’t look in a mirror without wishing he could push his head against the glass until it told what exactly that dumb reflection was. The mirror never answered, obviously. The day he heard mirrors talking back to him, he was so going to sign up for the nearest asylum.

But what if Philip was the mirror? A mirror that could actually speak, and tell Lukas what the hell was going on with his life? What if Lukas didn’t like the answer?

He liked the mirror, though. He liked Philip. He liked him so much he was forcing himself to look each day in the mirror for a little longer, trying to decipher what his mouth was spelling, what his hands were touching.

He lived in terror, not knowing when he was going to find his answer, but already sensing the day was getting nearer. And he wasn’t ready. At all.

Lukas thought he could find a way to survive the answer, if only Philip promised to stay by his side. He totally knew he was never going to make it on his own, because at least one thing Lukas understood of himself were his limits.

He knew when alcohol was getting to his head, he knew how many hours of sleep he could miss before calling sick, he knew when a jump with this bike was going to get him a broken elbow, and he knew when the pressure was just too much.

And it _was_ too much, and Philip wasn’t speaking to him because he had kissed Rose in front of all their classmates, making sure everyone could see just how deep his tongue was going into her mouth, ass-grabbin, and faked smiles and all, and Lukas was not going to make it to the end of the day if Philip didn’t speak to him.

He approached him between History and English class. The whole school had seen the video, the morning snog, so what if he left class with the gay kid? No one was going to talk.

Their classmates trudged lazily from a class to another, and Lukas saw Philip talking briefly to a girl. He pulled him by his arm before he could get into the room. “Come with me.”

Philip stopped and frowned. “Give me a sec,” he said to the girl, and Lukas barely noticed her smiling and nodding.

“We have class,” Philip told him pointedly. Sometimes Lukas forgot Philip was actually good at school, maybe because he had already studied those things back in the city, or maybe because he was simply smart. Lukas couldn’t care less. He knew good grades weren’t going to get him out of town.

“Screw that.”

Philip stared, but he still followed him to an empty corridor. He seemed annoyed, and that was only getting Lukas even more jittery.

“So people can see us talking now?”

“I’ve found a way to stay with you. It’s not… a problem.”

Philip arched his eyebrows and shrugged. “Yeah, that was kind. I mean, I just had to watch you fuck Rose. Nothing great, right?”

Lukas felt Philip’s bitterness biting him in the stomach. It wasn’t like he was proud of that video, or of asking for Philip’s help. He just… he was just desperate. He thought Philip of all people would understand.

“I did it only so we could keep hanging out!”

And he couldn’t even bring himself to finish it. But that he hadn’t told Philip, because talking about it just hurt too much.

Philip clenched his jaw, and Lukas noticed his knuckles going white with how tightly he was holding his fists. He was probably sinking his nails blood-deep in his own hands.

“Yes, when no one’s around! I don’t want to be your dirty secret, Lukas. I’m more than that.”

Philip had that thing when he got really mad: he didn’t shout. At all. His voice would turn almost monotonous, but thick with anger. The words trembled under the weight of rage.

But yeah, Lukas wasn’t as good at keeping his temper at bay. He knew he wasn’t doing things right, okay? Saying it out loud wasn’t going to help. It only made blood go to his head. He was trying. He was fucking _trying_.

“Why do you act like this? Fuck, you’re gay, you should know what it’s like!”

“No. no, I don’t, because I’ve never thought of hiding who I am!” Philip replied coldly.

“Yeah, and that’s why no one wants you around! You’re just a faggot here. I’m not going to be like that!”

Lukas froze. He saw Philip tensing all of a sudden, and he felt the bile rising up in his throat. Philip let out a bitter laugh, bit his lips, and his closed fist collided with Lukas’s cheek. It was so heavy his whole face burned, and Lukas stumbled back.

He grabbed Philip by the shirt, pulled him towards his knee and hit him hard in the stomach. They fell down, and he heard the distinct thud of his head hitting the ground. He didn’t care. He reacted to Philip’s blows in a white, instinctual frenzy, adrenaline filling his veins to the point he didn’t register the pain of Philip’s kick on his side.

He was angry, he felt violent. It was easy to use his height as an advantage to push Philip against the floor, and trap his legs under his knees. He clenched his fist, thumb outside because “ _Boy, when you punch someone in the face, you don’t want to break your finger with your own blow, right? If you have to get suspended for kicking someone’s ass, see you do it right_ ”. His father used to tell him so countless times and laugh right after. He hadn’t really believed his son was ever going to get into a fight. The joke had been rooted into Lukas’s mind, though. So thumb out, elbow high, ready to strike.

Philip was wriggling under his grip, but maybe he didn’t know how to free himself from someone that taller, maybe he just wasn’t angry enough to kick Lukas with all his strength.

It would have been so easy for Lukas to punch straight and break his nose, and fuck, Philip deserved it. He was the one who had started it. But something deflected his punch, and he ended up hitting on an open mouth. His fingers collided with teeth, cutting his skin and Philip’s lips and– _fuck_. Fuck, what had he done?

Philip spat on his face, and he had surely seen the blood, because he paled and put his hand on his mouth. He swiped it and saw red smearing white fingers.

“Get away from me,” he whispered.

Lukas couldn’t move.

“I said, _get away from me!_ ”

Philip pushed him, and Lukas let himself be pushed. He almost fell on the floor, panting. He saw Philip getting on his feet in some kind of a blur. All the adrenaline drained from his veins.

He took his face in his hands and tried to breathe, but even that was too difficult. His eyes burned and soon he was crying.

He had hit Philip. He had called him a faggot, and he had hit him, and if he didn’t run after him, Philip was never going to talk to him again.

Every time he wanted to make things right, he fucked up epically more.

He got up and ran. The corridors were empty, teachers and students having class, and he could hear his steps echoing. It made his head spin.

He prayed Philip hadn’t left. He wouldn’t know where to find him then.

But Philip hadn’t gone away, and Lukas saw him beyond the open door of a washroom. He was washing his face, and when he looked up at him, Lukas saw how Philip’s lips were already swelling, red and purple.

Fuck.

Everything he could have possibly said died in his mouth. It was so horrible, seeing what he had done – he was an idiot. An idiot, and a jerk, and _fuck_ – that he almost missed Philip talking.

“It was you. You were the one who spoke to me first. I would have let you be, but you came to me.”

“I know,” he whispered. He remembered. He remembered the day he had first seen Philip in town, and he remembered how many weeks he had spent thinking about the new kid before gathering the courage to speak to him.

“Why?”

“I don’t–“

Lukas stopped. He couldn’t say he didn’t know, but neither could he tell Philip why he had gone to him that day months ago. He really couldn’t: words would cram his throat, choke him, and he felt like vomiting or bleeding.

Philip stopped looking at him and sighed. “You’ve got blood on your face.”

“It’s yours.”

“Yes, I know that,” he said, like he was talking to a child who was exasperating him. Lukas guessed he wasn’t too far from the truth.

Philip washed his hands and came closer. Lukas stood still as Philip rubbed his wet fingers on his face, leaving cold drops of water on his skin and cleaning his cheek from the blood.

Lukas thought of thanking him. He had washed away the blood instead of hitting him again. He deserved the second way more than the first.

But his eyes fell on Philip’s mouth, on the angry colour biting those soft lips, and he felt his stomach turning. He wasn’t going to say thank you. He wasn’t going to say anything.

He cupped Philip’s face with his hands and kissed him as tenderly as he could. Philip moaned, in pain, surely not in pleasure, but he didn’t break away.

Lukas pushed him against the wall, and soon one of his legs was between Philip’s thighs, and they were panting and kissing, and moving softly against each other.

Lukas forgot they were in school, or that anyone could walk into them at any moment. He just needed to kiss Philip, kiss him right there, and he prayed that would be enough for him to understand.

He wasn’t going to ask for forgiveness, because asking for forgiveness was admitting he was wrong, and admitting he was wrong was admitting he loved him. The mere thought made him panic.

He put his arms around Philip and breathed in deeply.

“I didn’t fuck Rose.”

 “You didn’t?”

“No.”

Philip sighed and abandoned his head against the wall. “Why are you doing all this, Lukas? I need you to tell me because from where I’m standing I really can’t understand you.”

Lukas gulped and clenched his fists. Answers, answers… he had no answer.

“Because I’m not like you,” he said slowly.

Philip scoffed. “Yeah, sure. Keep telling yourself that.”

“No, that’s not–“ Lukas’s voice turned to a whisper. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, I’m not… I’m not…”

He sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Philip was watching. For once, it didn’t fluster him. Somehow Philip managed to pass him a bit of his calmness just by looking patiently at him.

“I’m scared.”

He saw a flash of something behind Philip’s eyes. He really prayed it wasn’t anger or annoyance or anything, because… because no. He couldn’t.

Philip bit his lip, and grimaced immediately. It was going to take weeks for that lip to reabsorb.

“Okay.”

Okay? Was it, really?

“I’m… I’m so–“

“I know. It’s okay for now.”

He knew. So it was really okay.


End file.
